One factor that is becoming increasingly appreciated in modern psychology is that inner states depend on the chemistry of the body. Many hormones, enzymes, and neurotransmitters are found to be central in regulating emotions, moods, and internal mental states. When the body sufferers from some kind of biochemical imbalance, one's inner state becomes disturbed. As a result, it has been found that many difficult inner conditions, such as some types of depression, anxiety and phobias, some forms of schizophrenia, etc., are due to such chemical imbalances, and that some pharmaceutical drugs can help alleviate these conditions by redressing the imbalance. It seems that the soul is not able to experience and develop all of her potential when such limitations are present. For example, it is not easy for the soul to feel light and optimistic when it is suffering from a chemical depression, regardless how much inner work she does. The manifestation of some of the soul’s potential inner states and capacities requires the chemistry of the body to be healthily functioning. This physical limitation can become a limitation in the experience of some essential aspects, even essence in general.

We can practice the inquiry of Diamond Guidance within any field of study; it does not have to be restricted to our personal experience. The Guidance can aid our inquiries in physics, chemistry, biology, sociology, and other disciplines, by sharpening and enhancing our capacity to uncover truth. Its function is to reveal the truth, and the truth can appear as a social truth, political truth, or scientific truth just as much as a personal truth. This capacity is the true inquiring and exploring faculty of the soul, potential in all but developed by few. However, I do see this as a definite potential for the scientific mind. The great researchers and scientific explorers have developed and applied this capacity, but usually only partially, because they have not clarified their own inner experience as well. I think it would be quite interesting and exciting to see how the full and conscious application of the Diamond Guidance might affect research in other disciplines.

In our view, life is inherent to the universe, rather than merely being a potential that arises when self-organization reaches a high level of complexity. In our view the universe is alive, and has always been alive. More precisely, when we investigate the universe from the perspective of its wave side, from its ground of consciousness, we find that life is a property inherent to the universe, characterizing some of its dimensions and forms. When we see the cosmos evolving through the development of self-organizing open physical systems, we are actually witnessing the life inherent to the universe, but from the particle side. The universe is not only alive; it is growing. This growth is what we see as cosmic evolution, which is explored by astronomy, astrophysics, physics, chemistry, biological evolution science, biological science, and now systems theory. However, these disciplines see the evolution of the universe in its particle aspect. As this life grows, an important stage of its maturation is the emergence of biological life. In other words, the emergence of biological life is the stage at which the universal life manifests explicitly and specifically. This lays the ground for the universe to experience its life consciously, which in turn prepares universal life to be conscious of itself, at the stage where introspecting consciousness finally emerges.

This Holy Work can be perceived and understood only when you are in the present, directly experiencing it. You have to perceive the presence to perceive the Holy Work. It is happening all the time, but we don’t normally see it as Holy Work. When we are not perceiving the universe as an
unfoldment of presence, we see it as governed by cause and effect, as a matter of physics and chemistry. When we are completely in the now, and know ourselves as part of it, we see the universe as an unfoldment of nowness, of presence, of pure reality. Holy Will, the Holy Idea of Point Two, is the force implicit in this unfoldment, while Holy Work is the action of unfoldment itself.